


Pirate and System Lord

by Gyvir26



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Gen, International Talk Like A Pirate Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:55:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26550085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gyvir26/pseuds/Gyvir26
Summary: Ba'al learned some things about Earth culture while staying on-planet. What does he know about International Talk Like a Pirate Day?
Comments: 3
Kudos: 6





	Pirate and System Lord

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this mostly-finished for a while now and finally got around to finishing it...and more importantly, posting it :)
> 
> Happy International Talk Like a Pirate Day, ye scurvy dogs!

Dire circumstances aside, Colonel Samantha Carter was actually enjoying the challenge of puzzling through the Ancient technology in front of her. It was interesting enough that she barely noticed her teammates' conversation until a muttered, "Idiots," reached her ears.  


Blinking as she looked up from her tablet computer, Sam looked at the rest of her team. Cam and Daniel appeared to be engaged in a lively discussion with Vala, while Teal'c stood some distance away, his gaze constantly moving about their surroundings even as he listened to the conversation. A barely muffled snort drew her attention to the last member of their party.  


_'Better make that dire circumstances and present company aside,'_ Sam groused to herself as she eyed the man standing just out of arm's reach from her.  


Baal had been an incredible nuisance the whole time they'd been working together, letting loose direct insults on the intelligence of her world, her gender, and herself, as well as thinly-veiled comments she had been trying diligently to ignore. She wasn't as free as Teal'c was to express her own opinion of the last System Lord after all. If he felt too insulted at her supposed insolence, he was likely to stop working out of spite until they could trick him out of sulking and into helping. Despite all the difficulties, though, Baal was undeniably brilliant and an incredible asset, at least when he wasn't letting his inner two-year-old control his actions. Still, Sam could appreciate his brilliance even as she wanted to throttle him for his personality, which was worsened precisely because he was so intelligent, and he knew it, too.  


As her brain caught up to the present moment, she finally realized what the others were discussing, and she couldn't help letting an amused chuckle escape. Her mirth earned her a glare from the nearby System Lord, which she returned with a slight smirk of her own.  


"Problem?" she murmured.  


Baal's eyes flicked over the others, clearly dismissing them as unimportant. "I find it inconceivable that you Tau'ri could have overthrown my kind so easily if you truly engage in such idiotic topics of conversation as that." The last word was underscored with his chin sharply jerked toward the rest of SG-1.  


Sam took a glance at the others, noting that Baal's seeming agitation had gotten their attention. She knew things were going to be…interesting when Vala took a few steps closer to the pair busy working rather than being involved in the exchange. Turning her head slightly to avoid giving away the mischievous woman's approach, Sam focused on the tablet in her hands, trying to appear engrossed in the gibberish it kept reading from the Ancient data crystals.  


"Sounds like someone's grumpy," Vala muttered as she stopped not far from Baal. "Don't you like having to do the work yourself?"  


The System Lord spun around, and if he'd been a cat, his back would've been hunched and hackles raised. His mouth opened, no doubt to start a furious tirade. Sam could only see the back of his head, but she could practically feel the anger rolling off him; even the naquadah-tingle in her blood increased, practically fizzing over, in response to the Goa'uld's rising blood pressure.  


_'Yep, definitely grumpy,'_ Sam thought.  


"What's the matter, Baal? Don't you like Talk like a Pirate Day?" asked Vala, her tone entirely too innocent.  


Watching Baal, Sam saw the tense set of his shoulders as he apparently gave his best death-glare at the other woman. After a few tense moments, however, he slowly straightened up, his shoulders going back into their usual confident posture as he turned leisurely on his heel back toward Sam. Despite the seeming control, she still couldn't entirely remove the image of a startled cat trying to appear like it was unaffected all along.  


Trying to conceal her interest, Sam tapped a few commands into her tablet, and she could feel the curiosity from everyone as to just what Baal's reaction would be. After several quietly tense moments more with nothing exchanged but glares, she looked up from her screen.  


Oh, crap.  


Baal's head was tilted to one side, his characteristic smirk pulling at one corner of his mouth, as he watched her. His eyes flicked around the ruins to find that the team had all moved where he could see them. Eventually he looked back at Sam, who felt dread pool in her gut at the hint of glee in his still-irate gaze. Whatever response he'd come up with she was certain was going to be entertaining—at least to Baal. Finally he spoke.  


"Watch yer words, you scurvy dogs, or it'll be a walk off the plank for ye!"  


SG-1 stared at him in shock, absolutely disbelieving that Baal had actually talked like a pirate.  


_'Not only talked like a pirate,'_ a corner of Sam's brain chimed in, _'he did a darn good job at it, too!'_  


While they stood in stupefied silence, Baal smugly smirking, the System Lord went back to work. Sam glanced at her teammates, noting with some shock that even Teal'c had an openly amazed look on his face, both eyebrows raised instead of the usual one, though it made way to his usual stoic expression as the Jaffa gave a slow blink. Cam shook his head before moving away to resume his lookout, while Daniel gently pulled a furiously muttering Vala along with him to look at something on a partially collapsed archway. From Vala's tone Sam knew she wasn't pleased at not getting one over on Baal, but she was also as curious as Sam was to know how Baal had any inkling about International Talk Like a Pirate Day.  


With just the two of them left to continue their analysis, Sam hefted her tablet and tried to get back to work. However, a quick glance at her irritating companion revealed a self-satisfied smirk still on his face, so Sam looked a little more closely at him. The anger was still apparent in his overly-precise movements, and there was a hint of the humor he no doubt found in surprising them, but there was a glimpse of something else, there, too. It took a few moments of surreptitious observation for her to work out what it was, probably because she wasn't used to thinking about a Goa'uld wearing a look of self-conscious relief.  


"See something you like, Colonel?" Baal murmured.  


Sam shook herself slightly and glanced around the ruins. The rest of the team had gone back to their conversation, though more subdued than before, even if Vala kept shooting even more glares at Baal. Realizing she was stalling, Sam looked directly at Baal, internally debating what kind of comment she wanted to make given his uncertain mood.  


"How long did you think it was a thing everyone did on Earth?" she finally asked.  
Baal straightened in brief indignation before he could help himself, and Sam knew she'd hit her mark. Somehow, the arrogant System Lord before her had been convinced that people on Earth spoke like a pirate on September 19 as part of an international tradition.  


"Until just after lunch," Baal eventually sighed, voice so low it almost didn't reach Sam's ears. He eyed her to see her reaction, so Sam tried to keep her expression as nonchalant as possible despite the hilarity of his admission. "When I realized there was not a great deal of attention paid to it, I did a little personal research." He scowled at her, likely hoping to quell any comments she might like to make about his situation.  


Surprisingly, Sam wasn't all that tempted to mock him for believing it was a custom—there were so many, after all. Her amusement came at the thought of Baal, Evil Overlord that he was, going around talking like a pirate or at least genuinely thinking he had to do so on a particular day. Something about that mental picture was too much for her brain to ignore. She let out an involuntary snort of amusement as she pictured Baal in a complete pirate getup. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him stiffen as he misinterpreted her reaction.  


Trying to head off a potential tantrum, Sam quickly said, "Probably for the best. You'd look pretty ridiculous with an eye patch and a parrot."  


Baal paused for a few seconds before the tension left his shoulders. Attempting to look like he was working, he picked up his handheld scanner before darting a glance at Sam.  
After several silent moments, he slightly startled Sam when he said, "Of course I wouldn't look 'ridiculous', Colonel." He sniffed disdainfully when she looked up at him. "I'm far too good-looking to appear anything other than fabulous regardless of my attire."  


Sam couldn't contain her laugh, which drew the attention of the others. Baal gave them a dismissive glance as they stared at the pair, clearly wondering about what had Sam laughing with (Or was it at?) the enemy. When she looked at Baal again, he appeared much more relaxed than before, almost as comfortable as he became when he was more focused on the problem at hand than his godlike image. He was considerably more bearable and easier to work with like this, not to mention halfway likeable, Sam was startled to realize.  


_'Oh no,'_ she thought, _'close that door right now. Not gonna think about it at all, not one bit.'_  


Baal was smirking superiorly at Sam, and she forced her brain into coming up with a response. All she could muster was a meager, "Aye, ye may be right, matey."  


Baal seemed surprised for a moment before his face took on an expression of delight. He actually chuckled, and there wasn't the usual malicious edge to it, either. Throwing Sam one more smirk, he turned back to work. Amazed at the surreal turn the day had taken, Sam went back to the open panel she had been examining. She couldn't help wondering what other surprises would pop up today. It was still early, after all, and she'd never have expected to hear a Goa'uld participating in something as human International Talk Like a Pirate Day.


End file.
